For Instant Launch:
August 18, 2023
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Miami – She died as she had lived: After spending greater than 5 a long time imprisoned by the Miami Seaquarium within the smallest, bleakest orca tank on this planet, disadvantaged of any semblance of a pure life, the long-suffering orca Lolita has handed away. Her demise follows years of PETA protests, lawsuits, an endangered species designation, and the current announcement that, due to philanthropist and Indianapolis Colts proprietor Jim Irsay, plans had been lastly being made to maneuver her to a seaside sanctuary. PETA will maintain a vigil in her honor outdoors the Seaquarium tonight at 8:30 p.m. and tomorrow at 3 p.m. Please see the next assertion from PETA President Ingrid Newkirk:
Type individuals begged the Miami Seaquarium to finish Lolita’s hellish life in a concrete cell and launch her to a seaside sanctuary, the place she might dive deep, really feel the ocean’s currents, and even be reunited with the orca believed to be her mom, however plans to make this transfer got here too late, and Lolita was denied even a minute of freedom from her grinding 53 years in captivity. PETA urges households to honor her reminiscence by by no means visiting marine parks and is looking on the Seaquarium to proceed with plans to ship the dolphin who was Lolita’s tankmate to a seaside sanctuary, together with all the opposite dolphins, earlier than the demise toll rises, and for SeaWorld to study from this tragedy and relinquish the orca Corky, who has been imprisoned in tiny tanks for practically 54 years, earlier than she shares Lolita’s destiny. Could all wild animals be free!
Lolita, who was captured from the wild in 1970 together with different orcas who had been despatched to SeaWorld parks, lived on the Miami Seaquarium with out one other orca from the time her companion, Hugo, died in 1980 after repeatedly ramming his head into the tank wall. The Seaquarium then held Lolita in a tank with incompatible dolphins who attacked her. She displayed repetitive and irregular conduct, which, in keeping with marine-mammal consultants, indicated extreme psychological trauma.
Late final 12 months, PETA obtained a damning federal inspection report revealing that the Seaquarium had restricted dolphins’ meals by as much as 60% for months as a way to make them obedient for performances, amongst different incidents. In 2021, a 17-page federal inspection report revealed that the ability had failed to offer Lolita with enough shade, diminished her meals consumption in opposition to veterinary instruction, and compelled her to carry out in ways in which possible injured her. The U.S. Division of Agriculture subsequently elected to not permit the Seaquarium’s new proprietor, The Dolphin Firm, to exhibit Lolita publicly—paving the best way for the plan to switch her to a seaside sanctuary within the Pacific Northwest, the place the dolphins saved on the Seaquarium might nonetheless go.
PETA—whose motto reads, partly, that “animals are usually not ours to make use of for leisure”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For extra info on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please go to PETA.org or observe the group on Twitter, Fb, or Instagram.
